E-Mail to Eric Pickles and His Response

I e-mailed the so called "Right Honourable" Eric Pickles MP (given that he is my MP) about lobbying for improvements to the Great Eastern Mainline railway run by Abellio Greater Anglia on 9th July. Yesterday, after 3 weeks waiting for a response, I got one. In this blog, I'm going to include a copy of my original e-mail and Mr Pickles response.

My Original E-Mail (Dated 9th July 2014)

Dear Mr Pickles,

I am writing to you to encourage you to get behind upgrades and improvements to the Great Eastern Mainline.

As you may be aware, your colleague and MP for Norwich North, Chloe Smith organised a meeting for commuters to speak to MPs and Greater Anglia bosses to express our concerns and to get them to buck their ideas up. This is a meeting I attended.

The service is appalling thanks to many things, including, but not limited to:

Old, ill maintained rolling stock.

Poor infrastructure

Lack of investment (from Greater Anglia, Network Rail and most importantly, the DfT)

The network has suffered an historic lack of investment and that has led to trains developing faults on a daily basis, overhead power cable faults, signal faults and track faults. Given than we, the Greater Anglia customers, pay more per mile for our train journeys than anywhere else in the country, we deserve a better, more reliable and more punctual train service. This can only happen if the required investment is put in place across the network for the trains and the infrastructure.

What I am asking you to do, and urging other people to urge yourself (and their own MPs if they live in other constituencies) is join up with Chloe Smith MP (Norwich North), Ben Gummer MP (Ipswich) and Sir Bob Russell MP (Colchester) and put pressure on the DfT and The Rt. Hon. Patrick McLoughlin MP to make the investments and improvements that are 

Your constituents and constituents of other MPs in the area deserve a 21^st century railway network and that is not what they are getting.

Yours sincerely,

Daniel Collins.

Mr Pickles Response (Dated 25th July 2014 - Received 29th July 2014)

Dear Mr Collins

Thank you for contacting me about the Great Eastern Mainline.

Our region is one of the fastest growing in the country and we are establishing ourselves as a world leader in science, technology and manufacturing. To support this growth we need to have modern, efficient rail services and improved connections. I was part of a group of MPs and local business leaders who put forward the case for greater investment in our rail network in 2012.

The Government have recently announced that a taskforce of Department for Transport (DfT), experts from Network Rail, and local MPs will identify practical and affordable options to improve services to stations along the line from London to Norwich. This will include examining the potential for cutting journey times to London by around 30 minutes.

The DfT has also asked the current operator Abellio to develop plans to refurbish and modernise the current fleet, by updating interiors, with new seat covers, new carpets and better lighting and by providing improved facilities, such as power sockets so commuters and business travellers can work more easily as they travel by train.

The new franchise deal between Abellio and the Government announced in April will mean real improvements for passengers on our network, delivering value for money for the tax payer, and supporting the national multi-billion pound investment programme in our railways.

Thank you again for taking the time to contact me.

With best wishes.

Yours sincerely,

Rt. Hon. Eric Pickles MP

Brentwood and Ongar

Well thank you for your response, Mr Pickles, but I can't help but think this is well rehearsed BS coming from your stereotypical MP.